A recent New York Times article, co-authored by Ronen Bergman, reports that Israeli intelligence knew in advance of Hamas’s plans to carry out an attack along the lines of October 7. While that may be true, writes Edward Luttwak, the Times frames the story as one of sheer incompetence, without considering how military intelligence works, or the nature of the IDF. This result, according to Luttwak, is a “carefully contrived misrepresentation.”
Instead of consisting of active-duty forces that are up and running around the clock, the IDF mostly consists of reserve units. When mobilized for refresher training or to fight a war, the reservists go to their specific depots scattered around the country to collect their uniforms, kit, and weapons—everything from pistols to battle tanks—before moving out as combat units ready for action. That is how a country of some 7 million has more than 635,000 soldiers, airmen, and sailors when fully mobilized.
But there is a major catch: advance warning is needed to mobilize the reserves in time, and even with the best possible intelligence analysts, and all the best satellites, sensors, and computers, the problem is not just hard, . . . it is impossible. Had Israeli intelligence analysis, or the arrival of a complete war plan sold by an enterprising operative, revealed Hamas’s plan for an attack on October 7, the Israelis would have sent much stronger forces to guard the Gaza perimeter.
But then, of course, Hamas spotters would have seen Israeli troops ready to defeat them—and they would have called off the attack altogether. There is worse: once an attack warning is received and reinforcements are deployed so that the enemy calls off its planned attack, the intelligence indicators that got it right will be discredited as false alarms, while the intelligence officers who failed to heed the signs will be the ones everyone listens to the next time around.
Read more on UnHerd: https://unherd.com/2023/12/the-nyt-is-wrong-about-israeli-intelligence/